Katrine eBook

“True, I’d forgotten. It’s
a strange life Patrick’s had, and a sad one.
He’s of my own college in Dublin, but a good
dozen years older than I. ’Twas in India
I knew him first. He’s one of the Black
Dulanys of the North, and we fought side by side at
Ramazan. What a time! What a time!
In the famous charge up the river, when we turned,
I lost my horse, and in that backward plunge my life
was not worth taking. While I was lying there
half dead and helpless, this Dulany got from his old
gray, flung me across his saddle, and carried me nine
miles back to the camp. Judge if I love him!”

Mr. McDermott looked from the window with the fixed
gaze of one struggling with unshed tears.

“The next month he was ordered home, and soon
after fell the bitter business of the marriage in
Italy. I stood up with him. She was the most
beautiful creature I have ever seen—­save
one; and a voice—­God! I heard her
sing in Milan once. The king was there; the opera
‘La Favorita.’ She was sent for to
the royal box. We had the horses out of her carriage
and dragged it home ourselves. What a night it
was! What a night it was!”

McDermott paused as in an ecstasy of remembrance.

“What was her name?” Francis asked.

“Ah, that”—­he threw out his
hand with a dramatic gesture—­“’tis
a thing I swore never to mention. ’Tis
a fancy of Dulany’s to let it die in silence.”

“And she left him?” Mrs. Ravenel’s
voice was full of sympathy as she spoke.

“For another!” Dermott made a dramatic
pause, relishing his climaxes. “And then
she died.”

“So, for his daughter’s sake”—­there
was a curious hesitancy in his speech just here, but
he carried it off jauntily—­“his daughter,
a primrose girl and the love of my life, I’ve
come to ask that you be a bit lenient with him, Mr.
Ravenel, at the times he has taken a drop too much,
as your lady mother has been in the year past.
I think you’ll find him able to manage, for,
in spite of his infirmity, black and white fall under
his spell alike.”

“If Frank has a fault, Mr. McDermott, which
I do not think he has, it’s over-generosity.
You need have no fear for your friend,” Mrs.
Ravenel said, proudly, putting her hand on Frank’s
shoulder.

As her son turned to kiss the slender fingers, Dermott
McDermott regarded the two curiously.

“You’re fortunate in having a son of twenty—­”
He hesitated.

“Of twenty-five,” Francis finished for
him.

“—­so devoted to you, madam.
Ye’re twenty-five—­coming or going?”
he inquired, with a laugh.

“On my last birthday—­April.”

An odd light shone in McDermott’s eyes for a
second before he said, with a bow:

“Neither of ye look it; I can assure you of
that. Well,” he continued, reaching for
his cap and whip, “I must be going. Ye’ve
found already, haven’t ye, Ravenel, that the
sound of my own voice is the music of heaven to my
ears?” And then, as though trying to recollect:
“I think I said it was at Ramazan Dulany and
I fought together?”